Tesla’s ‘tiny house’ hits the road in Australia to show off solar power potential

Tesla has a new way to demonstrate the possibilities of its home solar products to potential customers – using a ‘tiny house’ on wheels, which it can tow on a rolling tour with a Tesla Model X. The Tesla Tiny House made its official debut in Australia (via ), where it will welcome visitors at Melbourne’s Federation Square, before taking off for a cross-country Australian tour.

The towable Tiny House is reminiscent of the mobile design studio it introduced last September, which was a reconfigured Airstream that let people build their own Tesla vehicle as a kind of mobile virtual studio. These solar-focused demonstration trailers also feature mobile design studios and configurators within, but for Tesla’s solar products, including solar panels and its Powerball energy storage battery for the home.

The Tiny House has actual siding this time around, which is made up of sustainable timber with not artificial chemical treatments. It weighs 2 tonnes (around 4,400 pounds) and has 2kW solar generation capacity using 6 panels, which can feed the single Powerwall battery mounted on the side.

Tesla’s touring the country with destinations at ever major Australian city, but residents can also request it swing by and pay a visit to smaller towns along the way, too. Tesla doesn’t yet offer solar installations in Australia, but it clearly wants to prime the pump, and it does sell Powerwall batteries for use with solar installations from other providers.

This model seems likely to be applied to other markets, too, should the Tiny House prove effective in swaying Australian customers. On the commercial side, Tesla is also building a huge renewable power storage facility using its Powerpack batteries, which will be the largest such facility in the world once it’s complete.